Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE DREADNOUGHT, by WILFRID WILSON GIBSON



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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE DREADNOUGHT, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Breasting the tide of the traffic, the 'dreadnought' comes
Last Line: Sits kissing her hand to the drivers who follow behind.


Breasting the tide of the traffic, the "Dreadnought" comes,
Be-ribboned and gay, the first of the holiday brakes,
Brimful of broken old women, a parish's mothers,
Bearing them out for the day from grey alleys and slums --
A day in the forest of Epping grown green for their sakes.

Listless and stolid they crouch, everlastingly tired,
Mere bundles of patience outworn, half-deaf and half-blind,
Save only one apple-cheeked grannie, more brisk than the others,
Who, remembering, with youth in her eyes and the old dreams desired,
Sits kissing her hand to the drivers who follow behind.





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